Keywords
Kohlberg
moral judgment
cognition development
How to Cite
Abstract
The unification of two major approaches to moral judgment is the purpose of the present approach. Kohlberg’s well-known stage theory assumes a sequence of discrete stages that underlie all moral judgment. Stage theory recognizes the problem of integrating considerations but gives no way to solve such integration, even with information from any one stage. And, of course, the stage concept denies any significant integration from different stages. Thus, research on moral judgment needs to study the integration problem which can be tested within Anderson’s theory of information integration. The main purpose of the present study was to extend this unificationist approach to the issue of sexual morality. A novel task presents information from two very different stages. The results showed that in contrast to discreteness the stage informers were positively correlated in punishment judgments of both genders about consensual sex of juveniles. Furthermore, the subjects integrated considerations from those very different stages also in contrast to the hypothesis that only a single stage was operative at any time.
Anderson, N.H. (2008). Unified social cognition . NewYork: Psychology Press.
Anderson, N.H. (2015). Negative deserving: Blame. Moral Science, Chapter 3. http://psychology.ucsd.edu/people/profiles/nanderson.html .
Anderson, N.H. & Butzin, C.A. (1978). Integration theory applied to children´s judgments of equity. Developmental Psychology, 14 , 593-606.
Colby, A., Kohlberg, L., Gibbs, J. & Lieberman, M. (1983). A longitudinal study of moral judgment. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 48 , 1-94.
Colby, A., Kohlberg, L., Speicher, B., Hewer, A., Candee, D., Gibbs, J. & Power, C. (1987). The measurement of moral judgment . (Vol. I, Vol. II). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Damon, W. (1977). The social world of the child . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Gibbs, J. C. (2003). Moral development and reality: Beyond the theories of Kohlberg and Hoffman . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Gibbs, J.C., Basinger, K.S., Grime, R.L., & Snarey, J.R. (2007). Moral judgment development across cultures: Revisiting Kohlberg’s universality claims. Developmental Review, 27 , 443–500.
Gilligan, C. (1982). In a different voice. Psychological theory and women´s development . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Hommers, W. (1988). Averaging and fractionizing of fault: Implicit psychological theories of legal thought on sentencing and liability. In P.J. van Koppen, D. J. Hessing, & G. van den Heuvel (Eds.), Lawyers on psychology and psychologists on law (pp. 67-82). Amsterdam: Swets & Zeitlinger.
Hommers, W. (1997). Integration of Kohlbergian information in punishment. European Journal of Applied Psychologie , 47, 31-37.
Hommers, W. & Anderson, N.H. (1985). Recompense as a factor in assigned punishment. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 3 , 75-86.
Hommers, W. & Lee, W.Y. (2010). Unifying Kohlberg with information integration: The moral algebra of recompense and of Kohlbergian moral informers. Psicológica, 31 , 689-706.
Hommers, W., Lewand, M & Ehrmann, D. (2012). Testing the moral algebra of two Kohlbergian informers. Psicológica, 33 , 515-532.
Hommers, W. & Schütt, A. (2014). Cognitions about friends´ opinions in moral information integration. Psicológica, 35 , 569-583.
Howe, E.S. (1991). Integration of mitigation, intention, and outcome damage information by students and circuit court judges. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 21 , 875-895.
Howe, E.S. & Loftus, T.C. (1992). Integration of intention and outcome information by students and circuit court judges: Design economy and individual differences. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 22 , 102-116.
Jaffee, S. & Hyde, J.S. (2000). Gender differences in moral orientation: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 126 , 703-726.
Kaplan, M. (1989). Information integration in moral reasoning: Conceptual and methodological implications. In N. Eisenberg, J. Reykowski & E. Staub (Eds.), Social and moral values: Individual and societal perspectives (pp. 117-135). Hillsdale, NJ, Lawrence Erlbaum.
Kohlberg, L. (1969). Stage and sequence: The cognitive-developmental approach to socialization. In D.A. Goslin (Ed.), Handbook of sozialization: Theory and research (pp. 347-480). Chicago: Rand McNally.
Kohlberg, L. (1976). Moral stages and moralization: the cognitive-developmental approach. In T. Lickona (Ed.), Moral development and behaviour: Theory, research, and social issues (pp. 31-53). New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Leon, M. (1980). Integration of intent and consequence information in children´s moral judgment. In F. Wilkening, J. Becker, & T. Trabasso (Eds.). Information integration in children (p.71-91). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Rest, J.R. (1983). Morality. In P.H. Mussen, J.H. Flavell & E.M. Markmann (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. III. Cognitive development (4th. ed., pp. 556-629). New York: Wiley.
Surber, C.F. (1982). Separable effect of motives, consequences, and presentation order on children´s moral judgments. Developmental Psychology, 18 , 257-266.
Thoma, S.J. (1986). Estimating gender differences in the comprehension and preference of moral issues. Developmental Review, 6 , 165-180.
Walker, L.J. (1984). Sex differences in the development of moral reasoning: A critical review. Child Development, 55 , 677-691.
This journal is registered under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License. Thus, this work may be reproduced, distributed, and publicly shared in digital format, as long as the names of the authors and Pontificia Universidad Javeriana are acknowledged. Others are allowed to quote, adapt, transform, auto-archive, republish, and create based on this material, for any purpose (even commercial ones), provided the authorship is duly acknowledged, a link to the original work is provided, and it is specified if changes have been made. Pontificia Universidad Javeriana does not hold the rights of published works and the authors are solely responsible for the contents of their works; they keep the moral, intellectual, privacy, and publicity rights. Approving the intervention of the work (review, copy-editing, translation, layout) and the following outreach, are granted through an use license and not through an assignment of rights. This means the journal and Pontificia Universidad Javeriana cannot be held responsible for any ethical malpractice by the authors. As a consequence of the protection granted by the use license, the journal is not required to publish recantations or modify information already published, unless the errata stems from the editorial management process. Publishing contents in this journal does not generate royalties for contributors.